Antibiotic-Resistant Superbug Has Spread To Majority Of US States – CDC – 4 April 2015

Posted onApril 4, 2015bylucas2012infos|Comments Off on Antibiotic-Resistant Superbug Has Spread To Majority Of US States – CDC – 4 April 2015

The intestinal bug shigella sonnei has spread via international travelers to 32 states and Puerto Rico, US health officials say. The bacteria has largely resisted the main drugs used to combat it.

Between May 2014 and February 2015, a drug-resistant strain of shigella has infected 243 people across the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s findings were first published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The CDC found that 90 percent of cases of the shigellosis infection analyzed in Massachusetts, California, and Pennsylvania were resistant to ciprofloxacin (Cipro), the top shigellosis antibiotic in the US.

The agency found that the potent, Cipro-resistant strain was “repeatedly introduced as ill travelers returned and was then infecting other people in a series of outbreaks around the country.” Many shigella strains in the US were already considered too advanced for other drugs, including ampicillin and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole.